LEACOCK, Stephen (Butler)

Nationality: Canadian. Born: Swanmore, Isle of Wight, Hampshire, England, 30 December 1869; moved to Canada with his family, 1876. Education: Upper Canada College, Toronto, until 1887; University of Toronto, 1887, and part-time 1888-91, B.A. in modern languages 1891; University of Chicago, 1899-1903, Ph.D. in political economy 1903. Family: Married Beatrix Hamilton in 1900 (died 1925), one son. Career: Teacher, Uxbridge High School, 1889; teacher, Upper Canada College, 1889-99; teacher, University of Chicago, 1899-1903; lecturer in political science, 1903-06, associate professor of political science and history, 1906-08, William Dow Professor of political economy and head of the department of political science and economics, 1908-36, professor emeritus, 1936-44, McGill University, Montreal; Rhodes Trust lecturer, on tour of British empire, 1907-08; gave lecture tour of England, 1921. Awards: Lorne Pierce medal, 1937; Governor-General's award, for non-fiction, 1937. Litt.D.: Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, 1917. D.Litt.: University of Toronto, 1919. D.H.L.: Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1920. Fellow, Royal Society of Canada, 1910. Died: 28 March 1944.

Publications

Collections

The Best of Leacock, edited by J. B. Priestley. 1957; as The Bodley Head Leacock, 1957.

The Feast of Stephen: An Anthology of Some of the Less Familiar Writings of Leacock, edited by Robertson Davies. 1970; as The Penguin Leacock, 1981.

Social Criticism: The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice and Other Essays. 1996.

Short Stories and Sketches

Literary Lapses: A Book of Sketches. 1910.

Nonsense Novels. 1911.

Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. 1912.

Behind the Beyond, and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge. 1913.

Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich. 1914.

Further Foolishness: Sketches and Satires on the Follies of the Day. 1916.

Frenzied Fiction. 1918.

The Hohenzollerns in America, with the Bolsheviks in Berlin and Other Impossibilities. 1919.

Winsome Winnie and Other New Nonsense Novels. 1920.

The Garden of Folly. 1924.

The Iron Man and the Tin Woman, with Other Such Futurities. 1929.

Laugh with Leacock: An Anthology. 1930.

The Leacock Book, edited by Ben Travers. 1930.

The Dry Pickwick and Other Incongruities. 1932.

Funny Pieces. 1936.

Here Are My Lectures and Stories. 1937.

Model Memoirs and Other Sketches from Simple to Serious. 1938.

My Remarkable Uncle and Other Sketches. 1942.

Happy Stories, Just to Laugh At. 1943.

Novels

The Methods of Mr. Sellyer: A Book Store Study. 1914.

Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy. 1915.

Over the Footlights. 1923.

College Days. 1923.

Winnowed Wisdom. 1926.

Short Circuits. 1928.

Wet Wit and Dry Humour. 1931.

Afternoons in Utopia. 1932.

The Perfect Salesman, edited by E.V. Knox. 1934.

Too Much College; or, Education Eating Up Life. 1939.

Laugh Parade. 1940.

Last Leaves. 1945.

Play

Q, with Basil Macdonald Hastings (produced 1915). 1915.

Poetry

Marionettes' Calendar 1916. 1915.

Hellements of Hickonomics in Hiccoughs of Verse Done in Our Social Planning Mill. 1936.

Other

Elements of Political Science. 1906; revised edition, 1921.

Baldwin, Lafontaine, Hincks: Responsible Government. 1907; revised edition, as Mackenzie, Baldwin, LaFontaine, Hincks, 1926.

Adventures of the Far North. 1914.

The Dawn of Canadian History. 1914.

The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier. 1914.

Essays and Literary Studies. 1916.

The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice. 1920.

My Discovery of England. 1922.

Economic Prosperity in the British Empire. 1930.

Mark Twain. 1932.

Back to Prosperity: The Great Opportunity of the Empire Conference. 1932.

Charles Dickens: His Life and Work. 1933.

Lincoln Frees the Slaves. 1934.

Humor, Its Theory and Technique. 1935.

Humor and Humanity. 1937.

My Discovery of the West: A Discussion of East and West in Canada. 1937.

All Right, Mr. Roosevelt. 1939.

Our British Empire: Its Structure, Its History, Its Strength. 1940.

Canada: The Foundations of Its Future. 1941.

Montreal: Seaport and City. 1942.

How to Write. 1943.

My Old College, 1843-1943. 1943.

Canada and the Sea. 1944.

While There Is Time: The Case Against Social Catastrophe. 1945.

The Boy I Left Behind Me (autobiography). 1946.

My Financial Career and Other Follies. 1993.

Editor, Lahontan's Voyages. 1932.

Editor, The Greatest Pages of Dickens. 1934.

Editor, The Greatest Pages of American Humor. 1936.

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Bibliography:

Leacock: A Check-List and Index of His Writings by Gerhard R. Lomer, 1954.

Critical Studies:

Leacock, Humorist and Humanist by Ralph L. Curry, 1959; Faces of Leacock: An Appreciation by D.A. Cameron, 1967; Leacock: A Biography by David M. Legate, 1970; Leacock by Robertson Davies, 1970; Leacock: A Reappraisal edited by David Staines, 1986; Leacock: Humour and Humanity by Gerald Lynch, 1988.

* * *

Stephen Leacock is best known for two short story cycles, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town and Arcadian Adventures withthe Idle Rich. While he wrote numerous volumes—mostly collections of humor as well as essays and books on history, economics, and political science—it is these two works of fiction that secured his reputation and continue to be widely read.

One question often asked of Leacock's work, especially Sunshine Sketches, is whether it can best be classified as humorous, ironic, or satiric. Leacock certainly attacks characters and their flaws in his fiction, but he does so in such a gentle way that he cannot be considered a descendent of writers of Juvenalian satire like Jonathan Swift and Rabelais. As a consequence some have labeled him a "genial humorist" or "ironist." What we have to determine is the stance of the narrator: to what extent does the narrator of these two works ridicule and disdain the characters, and to what extent does he nevertheless identify with them?

According to Gerald Lynch, Leacock was a Tory humanist; he believed in the maintenance of social order but also the need for social reform. He thus rejected both socialist radicalism, with its optimistic assumptions about human nature, and the rigid conservatism that denied there were social problems or any need to address them. Above all he rejected American-style materialism, with its amoral philosophy of rampant individualism and absence of any sense of responsibility for others. Instead, he believed that human beings needed to be reformed, and one way to do that was through humor. Life for Leacock was full of incongruities, and the only possible response to its contradictions and inequities was humor that seeks to change the way people think and feel. Leacock saw himself as being in no way above his fellow human beings; their flaws were his as well. Thus, he does not take the stance of a superior belittling others but of a sympathetic witness to human-kind's follies. To be human is to fail to live up to ideals, so how can he apply standards to his characters even he himself cannot meet?

Yet Leacock does hold his characters up to a gentle form of ridicule; he does not simply indulge their all-too-human failings. He is therefore best considered a writer of Horatian satire—the sort that tempers condemnation of faults without denying the essential humanity of the targets. Leacock's narrator is never consistently superior to his satiric victims; at times he enters his characters' minds and even occasionally agrees with them. For example, many commentators have noted that in Sunshine Sketches Leacock pokes fun at the romantic illusions Mariposa's young women hold about love and marriage, yet proceeds to make it clear that the "enchanted" homes they seek do in fact exist. What makes them enchanted is the love that renders even the most humble house a true home. By refusing to make the women and their "princes" nothing more than objects of ridicule and by presenting their illusions as positive alternatives to the more cynical form of matrimony portrayed in Arcadian Adventures (compare "The Foreordained Attachment of Zena Pepperleigh and Peter Pupkin" in Sunshine Sketches to "The Love Story of Peter Spillikins" in Arcadian Adventures), he lessens the harshness of the satire.

That Leacock is a satirist is undeniable when we see the attacks on selfish materialism as embodied in Josh Smith in Sunshine Sketches and virtually all the characters (with the possible exception of Tomlinson) in Arcadian Adventures. Leacock makes fun of Mariposa's pretensions, particularly its assumptions that it ranks with the great cities of the world; the main street is so wide it shows "none of the shortsightedness which is seen in the cramped dimensions of Wall Street and Piccadilly," and it is lined with "a number of buildings of extraordinary importance." The great bank robbery never happens, and the great election is an extraordinarily provincial and cynical affair. His constant use of mock-heroic language makes his satiric purpose unmistakable. Arcadian Adventures is undeniably satiric, with its attacks on everything from fad religions ("The Yahi-Bahi Oriental Society of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown") to political corruption ("The Great Fight for Clean Government"). The insidious effects of materialistic modern culture are portrayed, and wonderfully skewered, in "The Rival Churches of St. Asaph and St. Osoph" and "The Ministrations of the Rev. Uttermost Dumfarthing"; because the two churches cannot operate profitably as long as they are in competition, their boards of directors agree to a merger. All questions of doctrine and spirituality are secondary to the matter of economic viability—if they are considered at all.

Nevertheless, Leacock tempers his attacks with sentimental and romantic elements. His stories usually end happily, whereas generally satiric works derive much of their power from the portrayal of triumphant evil. Also, no real harm is ever done; the effects of most characters' flaws or outright sins are seldom persistent or serious. His characters are foolish but not evil, and they cause inconvenience more than danger to others. On the other hand, Arcadian Adventures ends with the political victory of the plutocrats, suggesting that they have now taken control of the government as well as the religion of their city. The last line of the book ("the people of the city—the best of them—drove home to their well-earned sleep, and the others—in the lower parts of the city—rose to their daily toil") suggests the poor will continue to suffer at their hands, lending a more Juvenalian touch to the satire.

Leacock does make fun of his characters, and the more materialistic they are the more they are subjected to unmerciful ridicule. But he cannot forget that they are human beings, and as a human being himself, Leacock cannot presume to look down on them. He shares their imperfection and cannot help sympathizing with the comforting illusions that let them cope with a reality that seldom lives up to their ideals.

—Allan Weiss

See the essay on "The Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias."